about john patrick | 万吉平

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

I was born and raised in Olympia, Washington. I went to University of Washington in Seattle, and after that, the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. I concentrated on foreign language pedagogy, first and second language acquisition, and minimalist syntax.

For the past 8 years, I was a Spanish teacher and campus minister at a Jesuit high school in Seattle. Now I’m moving to Shanghai, China to work for a company developing online study material for people learning Spanish.

The posts previous to September 2007 have been imported from my previous blogs you don’t have to read and China Trippin’. I’ve decided to move to wordpress.com because it’s easier to use in China.

This blog is just a journal. Sometimes I tell stories, but mostly I just take pictures of my food, worry about diabetes, and complain about my life. This new blog will probably be about the wonders and challenges of my new life in Shanghai. I hope you enjoy it.

john patrick | 万吉平

UPDATE

It’s 2010. I was in China for about 2 years, working at SpanishPod. Now I’m in living in Battery Park City Manhattan, working in Midtown at Spanishpod101.

UPDATE II

It’s almost the end of 2010. I was downsized from Spanishpod101, but months before I had applied for teaching jobs. The best offer was from… wait for it… the Jesuit high school I used to teach at before I went to China! So I took the summer off in Las Vegas, with the folks, and then when school started I moved back to Seattle. So now I’m back to my old life; same office, same townhouse… it’s almost like I never left. I hope this goes well!

UPDATE III

It’s the fall of 2015. In a lot of ways, my 2nd round of high school teaching was nice; I got to live in Seattle again, I got to teach Chinese, I was finally making grown-up money, and there was a renovation at the school that made my work day better: an office with a million dollar view, a pretty swanky classroom of my own, etc. But in the end the workload was piled on to me in a way that I thought was inequitable, and I didn’t have time to take care of myself. It was miserable. Others suggested that I take my professional standards down a notch, an idea that was an anathema to me… but in the end, my students were getting fewer carefully crafted speaking and learning opportunities, and more worksheets. When I saw that there was no end in sight, I left.

I took the summer vacation I always wanted to: six weeks in the Philippines with extended family and daily Tagalog lessons. And then I reported to work in Glendale, California, where I work in an office, developing language learning activities for an online early learning website.

I never thought I’d be in LA. But here I am! Let’s see where this new path takes me.

hi jp!
wow you guys from cpod are just awesome wish i could be like you. i love writing and i love learning a different language wehter its the third of fourth just want you to know you guys inspire people like me so keep going! God Bless

Hi Edd, I was in China for 2 years, and now I’m back in the USA. Although I was so glad to be back, I did pick up some ex-pat habits, like getting massages, having a cleaning lady, getting clothes tailored… stuff that we don’t do in the US that I’m finding hard to live without. Well, maybe not hard, but I definitely learned to appreciate the luxury.

Hi JP,
I like your Spod shows, you and Lilian performed great there! I have got all newbie and elementary audios, shows, dialogs and pdf’s (don’rt ask me how). I plan to listen to a new show every day and then to repeat each dialog every 1-3-7-30 days. This way I plan to learn enough to communicate with my Cuban friend face to face. Do you think it will work? I know to start speaking is difficult even if you can understand absolutely all what is said. And I am surprised why nobody offers the tools similar to what AJ Hodge made in English, mini stories with questions, pauses and correct answers.
take care

Let me know how your plan works! I think some people like to listen to a dialog repeatedly until they feel they’ve mastered it, before moving on to the next one. But I’m not sure if there’s a wrong way to use the audio, as long as you’re enjoying it. It’s meant to be entertaining, so if a dialog or podcast doesn’t interest you, just move on; there are hundreds more!

Listen, no matter what anyone tells you, no one product is going to teach you to speak/understand/read/write/be culturally competent. SpanishPod is a well-crafted listening comprehension tool, and can help you with your vocabulary. People report that after six months of using it, their listening comprehension improves drastically.

You get good at what you practice doing. So if you listen to SpanishPod, your listening comprehension will improve, but that doesn’t necessarily mean your speaking, reading, or writing will improve… in order for those skills to improve, you have to practice them!

As for other language learning products…. it’s not as easy as you might think to make a product that has a) high instructional value, and b) high entertainment value. Many products are made by instructors who have no idea how irritating they are, or entertainers who don’t know how to teach. Actually, more often, products are made by business and/tech people who have poor knowledge of instruction or entertainment at all, but they know that people are desperate to learn, so they’re quit to sell them their garbage.

Me, I’m used to handling the instruction/entertainment side of things; but if you can put me in touch with someone with a head for business and tech, let me know! I’d be happy to put something new out there.

Hi Ash,
I moved to China in 2007, and switched from blogger to wordpress because at the time wordpress was not blocked. After a while they blocked wordpress too, and I ended up posting by email. Around that time people started following free vpns, to get around the firewall. Nowadays, I think the expats in china just pay for vpns, as they are more reliable than the free ones that were always getting shut down. The last I heard, wordpress was totally unblocked in china, but that may have changed. They have robots that scour the internet for key words, and if the find something offensive they shut down or slow down access to the whole domain. I left China in mid 2009. Hope that helps!

You haven’t heard from me before. I’m the Language Marketing and Publicity Coordinator at Tuttle Publishing. If you have not heard of Tuttle, we have been producing quality language books since 1948 and are a market leader for Chinese language study books.

I have identified You Don’t Have to Read 2.0 as a prominent online organization and would like to ask you if you would be willing to review one or more books for us. Language learners truly listen to the opinions of important online personalities, like you. I believe we have some great Chinese books and would love to hear your opinion.

JP I just tweeted at you but thought I’d try here too: the stuff you made for SpanishPod is without equal and you (and your dynamic with the native Spanish speaking hosts) were my favorite thing(s) about it. Not only is it super high quality, but you guys were SO prolific! Just want you to know that it really made and is making a difference in my Spanish acquisition and that I fantasize about you starting your own podcast with the old gang somehow again. Maybe one about multi-lingualism in general.

Hola, JP. I’m very happy I’ve found you here – it has been a pleasure listening to you and Liliana discussing Spanish grammar y la palabra clave! I enjoy your humour and voice and interaction between you two. Pity it did not continue and I’m sorry about your working conditions back there. If ever there is a chance to hear you somewhere again, please let me know, you are addictive y te hecho de menos! Abrazos desde Francia.